Les took charge of the meeting as MC. Both Graeme Bowden and Greig Lee-Archer are currently undergoing treatment for cancer. Our thoughts and best wishes for them both for getting better, and hopefully see them soon. Bruce Radford gave the international toast to the Rotary Club of Barcelona-Diagonal. Barcelona is the host city for Rotary’s 2027 International Convention. The Club focuses on building bridges between the generations to preserve the area’s Rotary clubs as vibrant hubs of service, ideas and connection for their communities. Through scholarships, Interact and Rotoract clubs, summer camps, exchanges and mentoring, the club has spent years building connections with young people. President Peter - thanked all members of the club for their efforts on the golf day, which raised approximately $39,000. The club has already paid donations of $12,000 each to STEPS and Lifeflight. He and Wendy attending the fundraising dinner for Nepal. Councilor Terry Landsberg has a community catch-up day on 16 November.
Peter then gave part 1 of his Vocational talk: At 17 he joined the bank in Jannali, and was told to immediately get a haircut. As the youngest and newest recruit he got all the crap jobs, until he proved himself and attended teller school. His most favourite job was getting out of the branch for the school banking - remember your Dollar Mite accounts, especially counting all the 1 & 2 cent coins. Olivetti computers were introduced into the branches, however they still had to calculate interest manually. After 10 yrs of banking Peter went to Uni to complete an accounting degree. He then moved to ANZ and became a Loans Officer. Stayed tuned for part 2. Ross - The club donated $1,000 to the Umoji Orphanage in Kenya, which was used to build a fence around the children’s home to keep animals and unsavoury people out. Our Kiva loans are working well. There has been sufficient repayment of the micro loans in developing countries that we can lend more. President Peter has signed the Sister Club Agreement with the Rotary Club of Cauayan. Our potential first joint project is to supply equipment to a school for use in their high needs classroom.
Eve gave an update on discussions with new member Michael Hatcher to assist with regular marketing of our Club. Some refresh the club’s website have been done, more to comer. She reminded us of the new business cards to distribute to potential members. Suzanne - Trailer Raffle - $1,575 sales on day 1. There are some gaps still for ticket selling on future weekends so please get involved and sign up. We need to decide on which local charities we will support with the proceeds from the 2027 golf day. Let Suzanne or Mike now if you have any ideas for a worthy charity. Vern and Janet Brown are running the ROMAC Trivia Night next March. The recent Bunnings BBQ made a $1,900. The Board approved the purchase of an additional 20 Shelter Bags, at a cost of $2,200. We have registered for future BBQs at Bunnings from February 2027.
Barbara presented Dan Thomasson with Rotary Member of the Month for all his work for the club in the Philippines. Thank you to all member who helped create 102 Christmas Boxes The recent vocational visit to Best Practice Eye Care A reminder of the vocational visit to LifeFlight at the Sunshine Coast Airport on 12 November Potential vocational visits in 2027 are to the Sunshine Coast Airport control tower and Patrick King has offered to host the club at his training facility.
Raised the idea of providing the organisations who participate in the golf day with a 1 year corporate membership in the club, subject to meeting certain conditions.
Bruce - The short-term exchange is underway with our student departing on 14 November for 3 months in France. They will attend a club meeting in February to give a talk on their experience. The STEMM graduation ceremony is on 24 November.
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